I've found it depends largely on the organization and role you are pursuing. In my experience, larger corporate companies tend to have regimented qualifications that are fairly unwavering. Start-ups can be more flexible and have opportunities for on-the-job training.

In my own experience as a hiring manager, I've tended to ask for slightly more than is necessarily demanded of the position, which usually nets a more diverse array of applicants.

One thing I faced a lot when I was first starting out was the "1+ year of experience in _______". For the job description that ended up being my first job, it was with email marketing/HTML.

I never coded an email before, and my HTML experience was pretty light. But, what mattered was that I had enough experience to put down that I had a year's worth of experience on my resume, and when the questions came up in the interview, I had some examples of my experience. Even though the experience I shared was working on personal blogs and coding HTML for an old game called Neopets, it was still enough to land me the job.

So, when you're seeing job descriptions with the "1+ year of experience in ______", try and figure out ways for you to back into the amount of experience they're looking for even if that experience was from your own hobbies or personal projects.

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